Daunted
by Forbidden Amber
Summary: Rorschach's visiting an old friend, but the reunion brings up some old memories that he'd rather forget. Been a long while but sixth chapter is up!
1. Reunion

Author's Note: This is a short scene that came to me one night after reading the Watchmen graphic novel, and after seeing the movie yesterday I decided to write it up. Since there aren't very many choices of female characters from the book (there's really only _one_ choice, and she's, in my opinion, an irritating mess), I've decided to create my own. 'Katie' is another masked superhero who worked with Nite Owl and Rorschach during their crime-busting days. Katie retired when Nite Owl did.

That's about all you need to know. Enjoy.

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**Chapter 1 – Reunion**

October 14th, 1985

As Katie was filling a teakettle with water from the tap, the antique grandfather clock that stood solemnly in the corner of the adjacent living room struck midnight. The familiar chime echoed through the dark house as she placed the kettle on the stove, cranked the heat, and fished a teabag out of a box on the counter. The only illumination that lighted the room was the faint, shifting white light that spilled into the kitchen from the muted television. She stood in front of the teakettle and covered her mouth as she yawned. With the other hand, she hovered her palm over the stove burner, checking to see whether or not the stove fire had caught.

The unexpected ring of her front doorbell made her jump. She hadn't been expecting any visitors, and certainly not this late. Arching her back and wiping her damp hands on the shirttail of her blouse, she crept out of the kitchen into the entry hall and narrowed her eyes at the door.

The stark blackness of the New York street outside was peering into her house through the two distorted windows on either side of her front door. The mid-October night was pitch black; the street light in front of her house was burned out. It had been burned out since she moved in seven months ago.

The growing sense of unease drove her to unearthing an old bottle of pepper spray from the small basket filled with miscellaneous keys that sat on a small end table next to the door. The label had been ripped off so that the can was unidentifiable. Just a small green canister that could have been spray paint.

She inhaled sharply and stood on her toes to get a glimpse through the peephole. A strange mixture of confusion, relief, and fear washed over her when she saw who was standing on her porch: an unmistakable figure – a man wearing a heavy brown trench coat, fedora, and mask over his face. She adjusted her grip on the pepper spray can and reached for the doorknob.

The door creaked when she opened it. The fear had not yet subsided, even as they gazed at each other, as close to eye-contact as could be achieved because of his mask. Neither of them said anything for a moment. When she finally broke the silence, her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat. "Fourteen years I've known you, Rorschach, and not once have you ever rung the doorbell until tonight."

Another moment hung suspended in icy silence. His left hand was pressed across his stomach and his posture slightly slouched, a pose that might make one think that he was shivering, but she knew better – his trench coat was unbuttoned and partially torn, and his hand was holding it closed.

When Rorschach finally moved, he spoke no greeting. He simply shoved her aside and barged through the doorframe, letting himself into the entry hall. She took a step backwards as he displaced her, and she stumbled backwards into the end table. The rattling basket nearly tipped over.

"Jesus Christ, Rorschach," Katie said as she steadied the basket and tossed the pepper spray back to the bottom. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He walked through the short entry hall and stopped at the archway into the living room, his wet shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor. He seemed to inspect the room, gazing at the yellow carpet and eyeing all the furniture before he finally spoke. "Came to talk to you," he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. Then he added, somewhat reluctantly, "Ran into some trouble on the way here." The shifting patterns of his mask offered no clue to his facial expression.

"Talk to me about what?" she asked. The rapid speed of her heartbeats still hadn't slowed.

"The Comedian is dead."

Her mouth twitched. She swallowed once, and the whistling of the tea-kettle on the stove mercifully summoned her away from Rorschach's gaze. Her bare feet padded across the carpet of the living room and onto the tile of the bordering kitchen. She removed the kettle, shaking her head slightly. "Tea? Coffee?" she offered, facing the wall.

Rorschach continued, ignoring her offer. "I think someone's killing off masked heroes," he said as he took a few steps into the living room. The squeak of his shoes fell mute as he wandered across the carpet, his masked face turning left and right, scouring the walls and furniture. He stopped in front of the television screen, where a muted image of President Nixon was giving some sort of speech. "Thought you should know. Already visited Veidt and Dreiberg."

Katie poured steaming water from the kettle into a china mug and dropped a tea-bag into the liquid. When she finally turned around, she found Rorschach on the other side of the island counter, leaning on his elbows, staring at her. His hand had abandoned the task of holding his torn coat closed, and it now hung partially open, revealing the top of an extremely ragged button-down shirt underneath. It was stained with blood.

"For Christ's sake, Rorschach," she said as her eyes fell to his coat. Blood was dripping from the buttons and pooling on the counter. He seemed not to notice. "What did you do to yourself?"

"Veidt and Dreiberg dismissed it, too," he said, ignoring her again. He perched his hands on the rim of the island counter, gripping the edge. When he continued, his voice was slower than usual. "Said I was 'paranoid.' Guess those two have to keep pretending that people like us are invincible." A small vase containing four white daffodils stood unassumingly on the counter in front of him, and he took one of the flowers between his thumb and index finger. He lifted it from the vase and rotated the flower in his hand, staring at it behind his mask. His blood-slicked gloves left red fingerprints on the base of the petals.

"When I retired, I put a lid on this stuff," Katie said, stirring her tea with a spoon. "Precisely for this very reason. I don't want to have deal with your–" She stopped mid-sentence and dropped the spoon into the mug with a quiet _chink._ She'd looked up just in time to see Rorschach drop the flower to the counter, his fingers shaking faintly. He was looking straight at the wall above the stove, and suddenly, his opposite hand which had been gripping the counter slipped away. Katie peered over the counter into the living room, and saw a thick trail of blood staining the yellow carpet along the path that Rorschach had patrolled her house.

Katie abandoned her tea and swiftly rounded the counter. "Sit down," she said, gesturing towards the couch. When Rorschach made no movements in response, she put one hand on his shoulder and pushed gently. "Knife wound? I can stitch you up."

"No," Rorschach answered quickly, tensing immediately at the contact. "I'm fine." He shrugged out of the touch and shook his head. "Not why I'm here. Came here to warn you, that's all. Owe you that much." He released the counter and began heading for the front door. "Going now."

His walk was unsteady, so she trailed after him, afraid to offer a hand yet feeling morbidly obligated to do something. He looked as if he was about to collapse.

She bounded in front of him and blocked the archway into the entry hall. "Rorschach, sit down," she commanded, steering him towards the couch. He seemed to glare at her as she blocked his path, the pattern on his mask twisting into a bewildered blob. It took only a moment before another wave of vertigo appeared to spin his balance. He followed her slowly, as if in a daze, and when he finally sat down he landed with a dizzy thump. "You've lost a lot of blood," she said. "Speaking of 'pretending to be invincible,'" she added quietly as she strode down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

When she reappeared a minute later, her arms were full of professional medical equipment – thread, one scalpel, tweezers, liquid anesthetic and a needle, bandages, and a disinfectant solution. She placed all of it on the coffee table and first reached for the anesthetic.

She was preparing to fill the needle's canister when a gloved hand grasped her forearm, smearing a bloody handprint onto her sleeve. "You know I hate that stuff," Rorschach said, his words slightly slurred.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It'll help with the pain," she said, the needle still in hand.

"Doesn't hurt," he replied. He didn't release her forearm until she'd placed the needle back on the table.

"Fine," she said dismissively, shrugging. "But you need to show me the cut."

Rorschach's mask held her for a long moment, as if contemplating. Coincidentally, the shifting patterns twisted into something that looked vaguely like a frown, and the pattern froze for longer than she'd ever seen it remain still before. When Rorschach finally dropped his guarding hand from his stomach and opened his trench coat, the ink fell to his chin before resuming its normal constant shift.

The button-down shirt he was wearing beneath his coat was a gruesome sight. Katie had been expecting a knife-wound, but this looked more like someone had dragged him across the surface an enormous cheese-grater. "Jesus," she muttered, leaning in to inspect the damage. "What happened?"

Rorschach let his left hand rest at his side and took a deep, hoarse breath. "Was walking past that old warehouse about a mile down the street on my way here. Smelled gasoline, lot of it, coming from the inside. Decided to investigate," he explained, his voice still unusually slow and tinged with a slur. "Broke down door and climbed stairs. Found two men pouring gasoline all over the second floor. Looked like arson."

Hesitantly, Rorschach unfastened the buttons that remained intact on his shirt and opened it while he talked. Katie winced when she saw what his shirt had been concealing; his stomach was streaked with thick gashes that were each oozing a disturbingly large amount of blood. Small pieces of glass were jammed in between his flesh and under his torn skin. "And?" she asked, frowning up at him.

"Tried to stop them. One of them seemed to recognize me, though. He said something to the other – couldn't hear what he said – and then they both dropped the gasoline. They sprinted for the opposite staircase, the one near a large window that faced the street. I caught up to them, and tackled the one in back, picked him up, and threw him through the window." Rorschach raised his right hand to his face, examining it, as if looking for some sort of defect. "Didn't notice he'd grabbed a good hold on my sleeve."

Katie bit her lower lip. The entirety of his lower torso was a ragged mess of torn flesh. Silhouettes of his well-muscled abs were visible beneath the blood, expanding and contracting with each breath he took. His chest was mostly free of the glass wounds, but it was covered in a hypnotizing quantity of scars, some more faded than others. Katie found herself unable to look away.

"Man didn't let go of my sleeve. Dragged me through the window with him. Dragged me along the lower frame… glass teeth…" he trailed off. His speech was becoming increasingly slurred, and he didn't seem to notice the pair of probing eyes observing him with veiled unease.

She reached for the tweezers on the coffee table. Her blood was pounding in her ears, pulsing through her so quickly that it had almost reached a point of discomfort. Maybe it was the sight of all the blood; maybe it was the utter strangeness and absurdity of the fact that Rorschach, the reclusive man who she'd partnered with for nearly six years back in the day, the man whom she'd known for fourteen years and yet never seen his face, was laying nearly unconscious on her couch. When she brought the tweezers to his wounds and began to sift through the torn flesh looking for pieces of glass, her hands were trembling.

"Do you remember…" she whispered, trailing off. A slight incline of his head said that he'd heard her, but she couldn't bring herself to finish the inquiry. Rorschach didn't press the matter.

Katie worked in silence for several very long minutes, plucking glass shards out of him and setting them on the coffee table for lack of a better disposal container. His blood had begun to coagulate around the edges of the gashes, but each time she pulled a piece of glass, the clot surrounding it broke and began to gush with blood again. She was beginning to get worried – he'd lost so much blood – so she tried to work quickly.

Rorschach didn't make any indication that he was in pain throughout the entire procedure. Not a budge, not a flinch, not even a murmur. The only sounds that filled Katie's ears were the soft _chinks_ of the glass pieces falling onto the coffee table and the rushing sound of her own blood and breath coursing through her. When she had finally fished out all the glass from his flesh, she reached for the bandages, and applied the disinfectant.

"This might sting a bit," she said quietly and started taping him up with the bandages. Rorschach still didn't move. Katie wondered if he really had fallen unconscious from blood loss.

She began bandaging from the bottom-most wound and worked her way up, all the while waiting for him to make some kind of indication that he was in pain, waiting for him to snap, waiting for him to swat her away. By the time she unrolled the last bit of tape and applied it to the final wound, his entire lower torso was blotted with patches of white bandage. She pressed down along the topmost strip of tape, making sure it was secure against his skin.

But she didn't stop there. She tilted her head and leaned over him, her dark blonde hair falling from behind her ears and dropping into her face. Her fingers never left his chest; they glided from the boundaries of the bandage to his skin, and very lightly traced the contour of one particularly large scar that stretched across the middle of his chest. His skin felt coarse and hot on her fingertips.

Now, suddenly, in the first sound she'd heard him make in over ten minutes, he groaned in protest. His dormant body lurched to life as he pulled himself upright against the back of the couch.

"Sorry," she said quickly, louder than she'd intended. She retracted her hand immediately, as if recoiling from a snapping dog. "I'm so sorry," she repeated as she sprang from the couch and stumbled towards the kitchen, one hand on her forehead.

Rorschach sat staring at the wall while she staggered back to the counter and began stirring her now-cold tea. He looked down at himself, observed the bandages, the perpetual expressionless face plastered onto his mask. Slowly, he turned his head towards her, and saw her standing at the counter, still stirring the tea with a spoon. "Sorry," she kept saying quietly, shaking her head.

In near slow-motion, Rorschach gripped the armrest of the couch and pulled himself to his feet. His trench coat and shirt were still wide open, making him look larger than normal, even more menacing. The white bandages on his stomach were a stark contrast to the darkness of the living room surrounding him. He was walking towards her, head slightly tilted, fedora just barely off-balance. She simply continued fumbling with her tea, unable to look at him, but fully aware that his footsteps were getting closer.

A cold gloved hand on the front of her neck made her gasp. He had halted next to her, masked face staring, his expression utterly unreadable. And then he shoved her by the neck against the white refrigerator door behind her.

He moved a few steps closer, cornering her against the refrigerator. He brought his face very close to hers, so close that she could hear the raspy breathing through the fabric of the mask. His smell was a pungent mixture of body odor and cheap cologne. She swallowed once, and the grip on her throat tightened. He stood in pensive silence for what felt like an eternity, simply holding his face an inch from hers. She chewed her lower lip, watching the shifting pattern of his mask twist and morph in befuddled patterns, studying its disturbingly beautiful symmetry.

He flexed his left hand and raised it to her cheek. Very gently, he traced the side of her face with his index finger, which was still caked with partially dried blood. The act left a thick smear of red on her pale skin. When he finally spoke, his words were sharp, deep, penetrating.

"You're _very_ good at making me hate you."

His iron grip released her throat. He withdrew and strode towards the door, assuming an eerily calm pace. His hands went to the remaining buttons on his torn shirt and he re-fastened them, buttoned up his trench coat, and re-adjusted his fedora. When he reached the front entry, he pulled open the door and was swallowed by the dark streets of New York, leaving the doorway wide open behind him.


	2. Old Ghosts

Author's Note: Well, folks, Daunted is back. The original chapter of this story was intended to only be a one-shot, but I've received numerous requests to flesh out the past of these two, and I couldn't help but start formulating a storyline in the back of my mind.

I now have a story mapped out for these two that reaches back in accordance with the Watchmen timeline. The dates/years mentioned in the first chapter have been adjusted accordingly.

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**Chapter 2 – Old Ghosts**

October 14th, 1985

The air outside Katie's house was sour and heavy. Rorschach jammed his hands into his pockets as he retreated from her house, walking past the burnt-out streetlamp. Visiting Katie had been a mistake, he decided. He didn't even know what possessed him to do it in the first place. He didn't owe her _anything_.

He continued down the sidewalk, strolling at a slower pace than usual. His mind felt scrambled, cloudy, and oddly _noisy_, as if a hundred voices were speaking into his ears all at once. He trudged down two more blocks before the sidewalk began to tilt, and he stumbled over a large crack in the pavement. A nearby lamppost caught him before he fell onto the concrete.

The blood-loss-dizziness hadn't dissipated, as he had hoped it would. He leaned heavily on the post, bowing his head, gripping the post with both hands. Clenching his teeth, he waited. The delirium slowed and his vision stopped spinning as he reoriented himself by staring intently at a fixed spot in the middle of the street.

Each moment that passed brought with it an increasing sense of vulnerability. Once his balance had stabilized, he surveyed the street carefully, and to his relief he discovered that it was completely deserted at this hour. Katie had moved into a relatively tame part of the city seven months ago once she'd saved up enough money from her job at the downtown hospital. Rorschach didn't like it. She'd set up her barriers in a quiet little sanctuary away from the reality of New York, as if she was trying to forget everything. She had gazed into the heart of depravity and seen the most horrific products of lust and gluttony and iniquity countless times; she'd combated it, fought for justice, and spent so many years cleansing the filthy bowels of this rancid city. She'd fought alongside him. And now she thought she could _forget_.

Rorschach released the post, but this second attempt at walking down the sidewalk proved that the damage was more serious than he first thought. Another wave of delirium struck him, and he finally succumbed to the vertigo and sat down on a set of brick steps in the front of a nearby house. He lowered his head and shut his eyes, holding the back of his neck with both hands.

A grungy bottle cap lay on the sidewalk in front of him, and he stared at it for a moment while he waited again for his balance to return. He outstretched his arm and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. Most of it was crushed flat, no doubt run over and repeatedly stepped on. The label had been scratched off the top entirely, and the bottom was blank. He ran his finger along the indents on the edge, and was inescapably reminded of the first time he met Katie, nineteen years ago.

It was 1966, the first meeting of the Crimebusters. Rorschach had just watched the Comedian torch the only semblance of organization the meeting had with his cigarette lighter. Katie had come for the meeting, too, he assumed, though he never actually saw her in the room with them.

No, that wasn't where he met her. The first time Rorschach had seen Katie, she had been rummaging through bar cabinets, looking for a bottle-opener to crack open a Coke.

He and Daniel had departed quickly after the Crimebusters meeting fell apart. They'd left through the backdoor and descended the stairs to the ground floor of the same building, all the while shaking their heads in disappointment as the odor of burning paper floated through the air. The sounds of their footsteps clanging against the metal stairwell successfully masked Daniel's disapproving whispers as he maligned the uselessness of the meeting into Rorschach's ear.

When they reached the bottom of the stairwell and emerged into a dimly lit cafeteria, Rorschach wordlessly held out an arm in front of Daniel, and signaling him to stop. Daniel halted mid-sentence, and scanned the cafeteria to find the reason for the standstill.

She was standing behind a soda-fountain counter against the adjacent wall, searching the cabinets in front of an array of empty glass soda bottles that were on display. A dime and a moist bottle of Coke sat on the counter before her, its green glass shimmering in the cafeteria lights overhead. The fading grey walls and the stained metal surfaces of the cafeteria tables and the utter emptiness of the room drew all attention to her; she was vibrant and green – or so she appeared in his memory – like a single flower growing from a pot of gravel by circumstance.

When she heard their footsteps, she looked up at them, and a shadow of confusion appeared underneath her black-rimmed half-face mask. She was young – only seventeen, as Rorschach would much later discover – and she sported shoulder-length straight hair that was a dirty shade of blonde. Her mask covered the upper portion of her face, but the obstruction did little to squelch the blaring juvenescence from her appearance. Her mouth was too soft, her complexion too clear. Everything about her screamed innocence, fragility, and inexperience. Rorschach still remembered the immediate dismissal he doled out to her in his mind upon seeing her. And he remembered the fiery degree of irritation he felt towards Daniel when he surrendered to her attempt at striking up a conversation.

She momentarily deserted the search through the cabinets and tilted her head. "Is the meeting over already?" she'd asked.

"It ended unexpectedly," Daniel answered as he approached the counter. Rorschach skulked next to him, staring pointedly at the fading wall to his left. "I think you must've missed the whole thing."

Disappointment flashed across her face. "I arrived early," she said as she finally found a bottle-opener in one of the upper drawers. "Waited around for nearly half an hour, but I got thirsty. Came down here for a drink." She lifted the device to her Coke bottle and snapped off the cap. The drink fizzed loudly and small particles of moisture danced excitedly out of the bottleneck.

"I don't recognize you, but you're certainly dressed for the meeting," Daniel went on. "Who are you?" They had reached the edge of the counter now and perched themselves in between the stained metal stools. Rorschach leaned quietly on the counter, one hand in his pocket, the other resting on the countertop.

"Name's Narcysia. Like the flowers, _Narcissus_," she explained, her face flushing just a slight shade of pink. "Daffodils."

Rorschach scrutinized her costume out of the corner of his eye. It didn't look very much like a flower, or any other theme that he recognized. It was relatively simple: a snug black leotard that covered her torso and waist, white nylons underneath, and dark flexible boots that reached to the middle of her thighs. She was wearing a loose leather jacket that looked as if it was intended more for function than fashion, for its aged leather stood out against the sleekness of her costume. Underneath the jacket she wore a thick leather baldric diagonally across her chest. It was studded with clips and pockets, but there was nothing attached to it. It was too big for her.

On some future unquantifiable date that Rorschach couldn't recall with precision, Katie would tell him the story of Narcissus, a Greek war hero who fell utterly in love with his own reflection and impaled himself with a sword when he realized he couldn't act upon his lust. Then, after his death, a myriad of vibrant daffodils sprang forth from his rotting corpse. Rorschach didn't like the story when he first heard it. He'd told Katie that he thought Narcissus was "an appalling example of the pratfalls of the human condition." He thought he'd seen her smile when he told her that. The memory was hazy.

Daniel extended his hand, and Rorschach watched the two of them shake hands over the counter. "Nite Owl," he introduced himself. After releasing her hand, he gestured towards his partner. "This is Rorschach."

He couldn't read her expression when she turned her head and looked at him. The black-rimmed mask shaded her eyes too much. She held her hand out to him for a shake, but he had simply stared at it, completely unresponsive. When Daniel started apologizing for him, she held up her hand and interrupted.

"You look thirsty," she said, her shadowed eyes still watching Rorschach's mask. She nudged the Coke bottle and slid it across the counter. The cold glass was still fizzing softly. "Take this."

The occasional sputter of the lights overhead reflected off the glass and cast a lush crystal shadow of soothing green onto the countertop. He looked at it, watching the fizzing droplets that had the audacity to jump out of the bottleneck steadily decrease in number. After just a second, Katie spoke again. "I _insist_," she said, and she leaned over the counter, picked up the bottle, and offered it to him with a gentle vigor that made him open his hand. She placed the bottle right into his palm.

Then she smiled. She had a rather stupid grin when she smiled; she'd expose a lot of her upper-gums, and her entire face would move all at once, causing her half-face mask to slide upwards a quarter inch. It was the smile of someone who hadn't seen the violent and sick reality he knew to be truth. Or at least, she was very good at pretending. The grin made her look young, innocent. Innocence that Rorschach thought would be better off left at home.

"I'll see you around, maybe," she said, and she tightened her jacket and squeezed the bottom of her sleeves in her hands. Rorschach had indifferently watched her leave, and he saw her look back once when she stepped through the door. She smiled that stupid grin again. It was a smile that would not cross his path or his mind for another five years.

Little did Rorschach know at the time, he would become very accustomed to that smile.

Now the memory of it sickened him.

Rorschach threw the half-crushed bottle cap into the middle of the street and listened to it clatter against the asphalt. The sound rang loudly down the deserted street.

Even after all those years, the image of Katie's young grin was very vivid in his mind – it was like a beacon, a bright light, but not the sort of light that comforts you in the dark. It was like a search-light combing through shadowed alleys, a blinding light that paralyzes you like a deer caught in headlights, a taunting glow that instills a crushing feeling of loss and sorrow because you know that the person who once held that light is dead, and you truly are alone. He wished he could forget, but the image was burned into his memory.

She'd changed so much since then. Now, she was thirty-six, and all traces of that green innocence had evaporated from her face. Her eyes were dark and tired now, haunted by the ghosts she had brought upon herself by her own collapsed principles. Her eyes were windows into the beleaguered being that he had sworn he would never become.

Rorschach gritted his teeth and pushed himself up from the steps. He put his hands back into his pockets, and trudged his way down the sidewalk again, heading home.

Visiting Katie had been a mistake.


	3. Sunrise

Author's Note: I would like to extend my gratitude to all of you who've posted reviews! Your support means a lot.

The current plan is that this story shall have an ending, and I do intend to pursue that ending until it's all on paper. It's been a blast writing it so far.

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**Chapter 3 – Sunrise**

October 20th, 1985

The next Sunday was born by the gentle fingers of a red dawn that stretched across an unusually cloudless sky above New York City. It was early – just before six – and the last remnants of the night's shadows were slowly creeping back into the gutters. The hollow footsteps of Rorschach's shoes echoed with each step as he strolled down the sidewalk, passing the narrow block houses lining the street. A fresh newspaper was tucked snugly under his arm.

He reached the walkway to Daniel's house and climbed the brick steps. With his free hand, he reached for the doorknob, and when he found it locked he ran his finger over the polished metal deadbolt securing the doorframe. Brand new lock. Same as the old one. He readjusted the newspaper to avoid dropping it, glanced down the street, stepped back, and shoved in the door with the brunt of his shoulder.

The door made an uninviting screech as the wood splintered. Rorschach burst his way into the entry hall and halted as the momentum of the distressed door slowed to a stop. He held perfectly still, listening to any signs of movement upstairs. After just a moment, he heard the faint sound of bare feet creaking across a hardwood floor. He'd woken Daniel.

Rorschach pushed the door back into its frame, and the broken wood filings around the busted lock groaned as they scraped against each other. He walked briskly past the stairs and slipped into the kitchen, tossing the newspaper onto the burnished table as he opened the refrigerator.

Approaching footsteps padded on the staircase. After grabbing a carton of milk, Rorschach opened two separate cupboards and produced an empty bowl and a box of cereal. When a bleary-eyed man dressed in a green robe emerged from the hall, Rorschach was already pouring milk over his bowl of cereal with a spoon in hand.

Daniel stopped in the archway and stared at him in groggy confusion. When he spoke, his voice was deep and strained. "Rorschach?"

"Brought you your Sunday paper," Rorschach said, folding his mask up to his nose and leaning back against the counter. Then he pointed at the newspaper with his spoon. "Big story. No one saw it coming."

Daniel rubbed his eyes under his glasses and glanced at the headline. The newspaper was the weekly issue of the New York _Gazette_, and the words "Dr. Manhattan Leaves Earth" were printed large, anxious lettering along the very top of the page. An unflattering picture of Dr. Manhattan was posted beneath the headline.

"Good timing, too. War on everyone's tongues and he just decides to vanish," Rorschach continued, swallowing a mouthful of cereal. "Wonder who's next."

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He took his lower lip between his teeth and glanced behind him into the entry hall, craning his neck to try to get a view of the front door. "What was that noise–?"

"Headline made me think of Doctor Milton Glass, who asserted that God does, in fact, exist, and he is American," Rorschach continued. He set his bowl on the counter, picked up the newspaper, and tossed it at Daniel, who subsequently caught it against his chest as he turned around. Rorschach paced across the kitchen and spoke facing the window. "Now he's gone, and there is no fire raining from the sky. No locusts or plague spreading rampant through streets. World still breathing. Suggests flaw in Glass's theory."

Daniel grasped the newspaper in both hands and held it in front of him, squinting as he scanned the article. Rorschach abandoned the window, picked up his cereal bowl and resumed his breakfast. After a few substantial bites, he continued. "Visited Veidt after talking to you last Friday. Declared that the Comedian's death was nothing more than political killing. Wouldn't recognize other possibilities. Katherine had similar reaction." Rorschach fell silent for just a moment, and his spoon made a soft clank against the side of his bowl. "May want to rethink your security."

Daniel looked up from the newspaper. "You talked to Katie?"

The inkblot mask twisted in the morning light that was spilling through the window over the sink. Rorschach hesitated before responding. "Yes."

Daniel raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Well, how is she?"

"Older." Rorschach spooned the final sizeable mouthful of cereal past his teeth and dropped the empty bowl into the sink. The resulting crashing sound echoed uncomfortably in the sudden silence that filled the kitchen. An agonizingly long moment passed, in which Rorschach froze while the sound of the bowl clattering against the metallic sink still rung in his ears. When he finally turned around, he discovered Daniel still staring at him, one eyebrow raised expectantly.

Their faces locked for another moment, Daniel's arched by an inquisitive brow, Rorschach's writhing and contorting in the shadow cast by the window.

Finally, Rorschach broke away from Daniel's gaze, crossed the kitchen, and retrieved a large metal pot from the open cupboard. Then he returned to the sink and began filling it with water.

"You really did go see her?" Daniel asked, tracing Rorschach's movements with his eyes. "How long's it been since you last talked to her?"

"A while." He filled the pot to the brim, and then he placed it on the front burner of the stove and twisted the heat knob. "By the way, you need a stronger lock. That new one broke after one shove."

"My new lock?"

"Almost expected to find you murdered in your bed. Wouldn't have surprised me."

"Listen," Daniel said, rubbing his temples. "I know you're resolved on this conspiracy theory, and I'm certainly not going to argue with you, but if it _is_ true… what are you going to _do_ about it?"

Rorschach leaned over the pot, observing the still water, his hands resting on either side of the stove. The tiny blue flame below the pot flickered in and out of sight beneath the metal burner grate. "Collect dues. Someone owes us blood."

Again, silence filled the kitchen. Rorschach didn't move from his perch over the stove; he simply continued to watch the water as small bubbles began to materialize and float to the surface. Daniel sighed inwardly and fetched a glass for himself from the cupboard. "I bet Katie was happy to see you," he said as he pulled open the refrigerator and filled his glass with orange juice.

Rorschach grunted, released the stove, and sat down wearily in one of the chairs at the nearby table, his posture a tired slouch.

"I haven't seen her in a couple months, myself," Daniel continued as he took a large gulp of juice and sat down in the chair across from Rorschach. "Not much at all since she moved. She's gotten pretty involved with her job at the hospital, I guess. No time for old friends," he said, gazing into his glass absently.

"'No time for old friends'," Rorschach repeated broodingly. "Everyone has plunged their heads beneath the water, plugged their ears. Can't hear the murky, distorted screams of their neighbors. Don't even realize most of country is already drowned."

Daniel sighed. "I guess things really have changed. Seems like the world used to be so much simpler, don't you think so?"

"Yes."

"Brings up memories of the old days, back when the three of us were a team," he said, eyes still locked into the orange contents of his cup. A faint smile appeared on his face. "Remember how Katie would always talk about wanting to go into medicine? Never thought she'd actually do it."

Rorschach said nothing. His mask continued to twist restlessly as he placed one hand on the surface of the table and watched Daniel as he spoke.

"I've always sort of admired her for that. I mean, sure, it's not the same kind of work we used to do, but you can't deny that it's commendable."

"No. Don't like her job. She's a crooked doctor who over-prescribes medication to addicts."

"Rorschach," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Katie's not a doctor, she's just a nurse. She can't even prescribe–"

"Hospital's even worse," Rorschach interrupted in a low voice. His chair creaked against the tile floor as he stood up and began idly pacing the kitchen again. "A blistering vault oozing with conceited doctors who don't ask questions, halls painted by the tourniquets of hemorrhaging masochists, cradles congested with the shrieking babies of rape and prostitution, garbage weighted with bloody bullets from murderers in gang wars."

The sliding sound of drawers became a rhythmic drumbeat to Rorschach's voice as he opened and closed the various drawers beneath the counters and sink. "Doctors remedy the rampant festering diseases from tainted whores, they stitch the cuts of battered children with abusive parents and send them back home – and when they're done, they glut themselves on food that's salted with the sweat and waterless tears of strife. They bury the broken bones and boil away the blood until there's nothing left, and then the bandaged scum stumble out the hospital doors, unable to remember why they were there in the first place."

Drawers opened and closed. Silverware, Tupperware, measuring cups. Daniel knew he wasn't actually looking for anything in particular. Daniel lowered his head and fixed his eyes on the table in front of him, and each slow breath he inhaled sounded vaguely like a sigh. When the gentle simmering of boiling water emanated from the stove, Rorschach stopped pacing and unerringly discovered the cupboard which contained a bag of ground coffee beans.

Daniel watched him slide the pot onto one of the unheated burners. He swallowed once, and spoke quietly. "Why do you hate her so much?"

Rorschach clenched his jaw. "I don't. Just don't like her job."

"Don't give me that crap," Daniel said, frowning. "You think I never noticed when you two suddenly started giving each other the cold shoulder back in '77? Something happened during the police strike and I–"

"Stop bringing her up," Rorschach said in a gravelly tone. Still holding the bag of coffee beans, he turned around and pointed at the newspaper on the table with his free hand. "More important things to discuss. This doesn't concern her. She retired."

"Rorschach…" Daniel just shook his head. "So did I."

The shifting patterns slowed to a wordless amble as Rorschach fell silent and stared at Daniel from behind his mask. Daniel returned his gaze with a probing mixture of remorse, defiance, and a veiled undertone of condescension, as if he were a grandfather scolding a stubborn child. "It's been eight years, Rorschach. We were all teammates for nearly that long. Whatever happened back in the day, can't you forgive her?"

Rorschach grunted and turned his back. He placed the coffee beans on the counter and opened the bag; the crumpling sound of the plastic paper filled the momentary silence.

"Or are you waiting for her to forgive _you_?"

Rorschach huffed harshly and threw the bag in front of him, and it collided with the wall with an audible thump. When it skimmed down the wall and landed on the back of the countertop, a small avalanche of coffee grounds scattered from the opening. "Need to go now. Things to do," Rorschach said, shoving his hands in his pockets and striding towards the door.

Daniel stood up and followed his friend to the entry hall. Rorschach grasped the doorknob and pulled it open, causing a dusty explosion of tiny wood particles to fly from the chafing wood filings. The morning sunlight streamed through the open door and cast a long river of gold along the length of the entry hall.

"Don't try to be a hero," Rorschach said as he stepped through the doorframe into the blooming sun. "Those days are over."


	4. Luck

Author's Note: Sorry about the shortness of this chapter; it's been a rather busy week. I'll have more time this weekend, so expect a fifth installment soon.

Another thanks to all of you who've reviewed. Probably wouldn't have pursued this story without your encouragement.

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**Chapter 4 – Luck**

October 20th, 1985

Too many memories flooding back. No, he didn't want to remember.

Rorschach dug around in one of his pockets, displacing his flashlight and pen until he found a small wrapped cube of chewing sugar. When he pulled it out of his pocket, his gloves were peppered with wrinkled slivers of dark, wilted rose petals. The withered fragments blew away in the soft morning breeze as he unwrapped the cube, lifted his mask, and popped it into his mouth.

He had descended the steps up to Daniel's house and turned onto the sidewalk, stuffing the sugar wrapper back into his pocket as he walked. It was still rather early, and the street was mercifully empty.

Places to be. Questions to answer. A comedian died in New York. He walked faster.

The tilted sunlight was completely unobstructed as it rose in the east. He chewed the sugar in his mouth and kept his head lowered as the light streamed onto his mask. He observed the ground beneath his shoes with focused precision: the sunlight was reflecting off pavement that had been waxed with aged gum and the soft treading of a thousand steps; the street was freckled with cracks and splotches of dirt and solitary blades of grass that peeked from underneath the concrete tiles. And he could see her smiling again. Too many memories.

A glinting penny lay on the sidewalk before him. Rorschach didn't slow his pace, but he glanced at the penny as he walked past it. A single, shining penny to grace his morning with good luck. Suddenly he could distract his treacherous memory no longer, and Katie's voice infiltrated his mind: a deafening chorus to the already blinding image in his head.

"You know what my dad always says about luck?" she had said, smiling very slightly underneath her mask. "'Lucky rabbit's foot never helped the rabbit.'"

Memory broke his barriers. The year was 1973, and the three costumed heroes were trudging through the New York sewer system, following a tip about a possible drug-bust. It was a sticky, clammy, mid-July night, and the suffocating humid air had sunk through the pavement and now incubated the sewer tunnels. The thick gutter steam that drifted over their heads made the conditions even worse.

"Of course, that's why my father never relies on rabbit's feet or lucky pennies. He always says luck is just a result of hard work."

The accumulated gunk and filth that caked the sewer tunnels made soft squishing noises as three sets of boots plodded through narrow passages. A soft drip was ever-present in the background; its volume never seemed to change as they weaved through the complicated labyrinth of channels. Rorschach was just a few steps ahead of his partners, scanning the utter darkness with his handheld flashlight.

Nite Owl stumbled over a rusted pipe that jutted out from the base of the wall and his boots slipped and skidded for a moment as he nearly tripped in the sludge. He reached for the wall to regain his balance, only to discover the metal-planked wall was layered by a squishy coating of mold and slime. "Well, by that logic, I'd say we're overdue for a little good fortune," he muttered, scowling as he rubbed his filthy thumb and index finger together.

Narcysia flashed her handheld light over him. "Need a hand?"

"I'm fine." Nite Owl wiped his glove on his thigh and the three marched onwards into the shadows. The constantly fluttering flashlights that they carried made their brigade look like a search-party scouring a sunken ship for bodies. The sludge beneath their feet went through varying degrees of viscosity and depth, but hadn't taken long for their shoes to become heavy with clinging slime.

They traveled through the dripping, sloshing passage for another minute. Narcysia pointed her flashlight to the ground to illuminate any possible pathway obstructions. Suddenly, Rorschach held his flashlight to the side and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Tell me about your father."

She froze in her tracks and tilted her head slightly, stared right back at him, and her mouth hung open for a split second. Then her strides resumed, her eyes fell to the ground, and she watched her own feet to ensure that she would not trip over something in the dark. "Well, sure, I guess," she said, her voice echoing through the tunnel. Rorschach slowed his pace and walked closer, matching her steps and watching her out of the corner of his eye as she spoke. "My parents got a divorce when I was seven. Mom moved to Oregon and left my dad here, in New York, to raise me and my older brother."

Nite Owl took the lead in front of them, his artificial beam of light glinting off the wet surfaces of the grimy passageway. Narcysia's voice sounded dampened by the heavy moisture in the air.

"He never got remarried. Instead, he just became really focused on his job. He'd been working with the New York Police Department since he was about twenty-three, and suddenly that job became like a third kid for him," Narcysia continued. "He went to work every single day, and worked a lot of overtime. He had so many long speeches about 'how much he was forced to sweat' in order to support a family with mouths to feed, and he'd tell us the same speeches over and over again. We had them all memorized by the time we were teenagers." She lowered her voice as she stepped over a pipe. "Sometimes I wonder if he was _trying_ to make us feel guilty."

Rorschach was staring at her fixedly as she spoke; his eyes pulled away only for the occasional split-second to survey the oncoming tunnel. She was still watching her own shoes.

"He'd spend a lot of time in front of the television when he was home. Always watching the news – usually global. Sometimes he'd make us watch, and he'd say things like 'You see all these bad omens overseas? World War III is coming, I swear it!'" she said, deepening her voice to imitate a man's. "He started collecting pennies, too. Thousands of them. For the longest time, he thought that the collapsing economy would make copper worth its weight in gold by the turn of the century, and paper money would be worthless," she said, shaking her head with an amused smile. "Those coins are still down in the basement, I think."

Narcysia stopped and looked up at Rorschach. The diffusing light from the flashlights was just enough to illuminate his ever-shifting face as it watched her with expressionless inquisition. She took a deep breath, and continued. "I wasn't really very close with him, I guess – he was always more focused on my brother. I think he'd always assumed that my brother would follow him and join the police force once he finished school, but he sort of gave up on my brother by the time he turned eighteen." Narcysia trailed off into pensive silence. The soft squishing of mud beneath their boots crinkled the momentary quiet.

"He never really paid me much mind until I was sixteen. That's when he started hinting that I should be the one to follow his footsteps and join the police force. 'It's a respectable job,'" Narcysia said, deepening her voice again. "'Honest work for honest pay.'"

She cleared her throat. "He worked that job until about just two years ago, actually… when he lost his arm in a shootout," she said. "Had to retire, then."

The soft squishing of their footsteps dominated their ears when Narcysia finished. _Drip, drip._ Unseen water was still trickling down distant, invisible pipes.

"Your father sounds like a good man."

"Yeah," Narcysia said quietly. "Yeah, I guess he is."

"What's his name?"

"Abram."

_Drip._ Three sets of boots trudged through sewer sludge. The air was suffocating and hot, putrid and reeking. A long moment passed before Narcysia spoke again.

"So, what about you? What's your father like?"

Rorschach fanned the area in front of him with his light and quickened his pace. The distance between them grew. When Rorschach spoke, his voice met the shadows. "My father was a good man, too."

Rorschach's simple divulgence invited no further comment. The team had continued through the passage until they descended into the remainder of a blurry, muddled memory. But there was more. No, he didn't want to remember.

Rorschach swallowed the sugar cube and raised his head, squinting into the morning sun. The light was oddly comforting as it glared into his eyes; it was a welcomed contrast to the utter darkness of the sewer tunnel in his mind. The blinding light poured over his mask and seeped through the latex, cast an incisive beam over his thoughts and numbed the intrusive memories.

And Rorschach embraced the light, for he knew where those memories would take him. Sore, aching memories better left forgotten.

He quickened his pace and listened to the soft footsteps of his shoes on the sidewalk. Places to be. Questions to answer.


	5. Masks

Author's Note: My most sincere apologies that this chapter took so long to finish! Last week proved to be busier than I expected. And then I got majorly sick over the weekend and… well, you get the idea. Future updates shouldn't take so long, I hope. Reviews welcome, of course.

Anyway, on with the chapter! Oh, fair warning for language in the second part of the chapter, yadda yadda yadda. Yes, I know. I'm sure you're all covering your virgin eyes.

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**Chapter 5 – Masks**

October 20th, 1985

If there was one thing Rorschach missed in particular about the old days, it was the conversation, oddly enough.

Presently, Rorschach could safely assert that Katie knew more about him and his practical predispositions than anyone else in the world. But this familiarization had not been the result of any sort of amity between them until much later; it had simply been because she had been the only person who took the time to ask. Indeed, she would question him quite often: she would inquire as to his own theology, she would request his thoughts on contemporary statecraft, and she would often appear with political topics on-tongue and ask his opinion (to which he would answer by his purest of conservative intuition, and she might have subsequently challenged him for the sake of benign controversy).

Upon acquaintance, most might entertain the impression that Rorschach was not a man of many words. In truth, however, he held a plethora of polarized opinions on almost every subject imaginable, and he was quite willing to recite and debate when requested. Katie's motives for discussion appeared, to him, as far more rudimentary: driven by the desire for dialogue and amusement. He didn't mind. As the months passed, he found himself realizing he'd developed a certain anomalous appreciation for Katie's banter. And so, he would play her games.

Rorschach could recall one conversation on the topic of religious affiliations, a conversation in which she had described her spiritual state as "contentedly agnostic." The concept had perturbed him. In many ways, agnosticism was a thousand times worse than the most devout zealot. Spirituality had never struck him as something that was speculative; either you wholeheartedly delude yourself into religious devotion or you believe in nothing at all. Any grey area in between reeked of vacillating, ambivalent conviction.

He had refrained from vocalizing his disdain for her ignorance and instead attributed it to her sheltered, cosseted childhood. He had thought her agnosticism was an ideal that she would outgrow and shed once she had seen the world through unclouded eyes. And he was correct in his prediction.

There was no denying the fact that his friendship with Katie was different than his friendship with Daniel. Even the most obstinate and intractable facets of his mind had come to terms with this. What was far more difficult for him was classifying exactly what that discrepancy was or how it had swindled its way into existence. Daniel was a good friend, but there had been a series of disparities about his relationship with Katie that Rorschach never quite understood: the regular feeling of complacency he had begun to experience when he saw her each night, the amusement he discovered in her inquisitive banter, his eagerness to requite her discourse, and an innumerable quantity of subtle but distinctive quirks in their interactions that he barely noticed until they were no longer there.

But there was one night, one Halloween night in 1973, when she had asked him for something that he would never willingly surrender.

The October evening had been cloudy and bitingly cold. Two costumed figures were perched on top of a large apartment building that overlooked a residential street below. The street was stippled with groups of bustling children dressed in Halloween costumes with bags of candy in hand, and the chirping of young voices was distant and muffled by the low rumbling of the wind against their ears. Above them, an eerily full moon peeked through a rare gap in the cloud layer and cast a silvery radiance over the dark rooftop.

"I've always had mixed feelings about Halloween since I was a kid," Narcysia said as they approached the concrete railing that lined the border of the rooftop. Rorschach had his eyes locked on the sky overhead as he searched the sallow clouds for signs of Nite Owl's ship, but she knew he was listening. "I never had a proper Halloween with costumes and trick-or-treating until I was eight, and when I finally had one, my costume gave me a rash and my brother took all my chocolate."

The clouds were deserted, so Rorschach pried his vision from the sky and looked at her as they strolled towards the concrete railing. The profile of her face glowed like a silver silhouette in the moonlight. "No Halloween until you were eight?" Rorschach asked.

The profile turned and her eyes glinted in the moon rays. She gave a slight chuckle, almost nervously. "Well, my mom was sort of a fanatic," she said, and Rorschach watched her scratch the back of her head. She always did that when she was even just slightly uneasy.

"Afraid for your safety?"

"No, not quite," Narcysia continued. "She was Catholic. _Very_ Catholic. She told us that Halloween was a pagan holiday and wouldn't let us celebrate."

"And your father?" he asked.

"Oh, my father didn't care. Once my parents divorced, I had my first Halloween," she said. "I think I dressed up as a butterfly or something like that. The costume was uncomfortable and I hated it."

The cold wind was whipping at his fedora and mask, gusting its way through the tiny gaps in the fabric and gently washing over his shielded face. He hesitated a moment before clarifying himself. "I meant your father's faith."

"Oh," Narcysia said. "He's a Protestant. I mean, I guess he is. He's not very spiritual about it or anything."

Rorschach fell silent as they reached the railing. He placed both of his arms on the top of the rail and looked down over the precipice to survey the street below. The immediate street had momentarily emptied. The wind had slowed, and even the faint sound of the chattering had faded off entirely into the next street.

Narcysia followed his gaze and watched him as he leaned on the concrete railing in front of her. "Sort of funny how things turned out. Now, sixteen years later, I'm masked on a rooftop looking for crooks on Halloween night, and I don't even get any candy," Narcysia continued, and he could hear the smile in her voice. She leaned onto the banister beside him. "Who'd have thought."

Rorschach suddenly became aware that her elbow had brushed against his, and he immediately glanced up from the street and looked at her. His heart skipped a half a beat when he realized how close she was standing next to him. Close enough to smell the soft flowery scent of her perfume, close enough to see the sparkling moonlight in her eyes, close enough to see the stormy patterns of her dark blue irises. Close enough to touch.

"Guess we sort of fit in with the scene, don't we?" she continued, tapping the side of her mask with her gloved index finger.

Rorschach leaned away from her and dropped his elbow from the wall. "Lots of kids down there. Should be especially careful," he said as he reverted his gaze to the street below. "Nite Owl's late."

"Yeah. I hope he didn't run into any trouble or anything," Narcysia said. The two of them stared down at the street. She brushed a lock of loose hair that had been swept by the wind behind her ear.

"Now I don't mind Halloween so much," Narcysia said softly. "People get a chance to pretend, a chance to be something else. Everyone gets a night to put on masks. But…" She trailed off and looked directly at Rorschach, who was still staring pointedly at the street. She sighed softly in the gentle breeze.

When she spoke again, Rorschach felt an unpleasant chill cascade down his spine. Her voice was warm, imploring, and invasive all at once, an alien tone that he'd never heard from her before. "Don't we ever get a night to take the masks off?"

Rorschach's head snapped towards her and stared with detached alarm. The shifting inkblot quickened, twisting and struggling in one unusually alacritous surge. The resolute expression in her eyes confirmed that the question was not rhetorical. He swallowed once before he replied. "No. Never."

For just a fraction of a second, a distinct shadow of regret and disappointment flickered across her face. The light in her eyes faded as an overhanging cloud drifted in the wind and obstructed the moonlight glow. Then she lowered her eyes, smiled ruefully, and her gaze slipped back to the street.

Rorschach could feel his blood coursing through him much faster than normal; it was pumping through him, his heart had quickened, and his veins felt hot. He stared at her fixedly, the face beneath his mask paralyzed with bewilderment and shock, a hundred fractured thoughts all bombarding his mind at once. It simply didn't make sense to him. _She _didn't make sense.

He let his remaining hand slip from the surface of the concrete rail. "We should find Nite Owl. Sitting still too much."

He took off across the rooftop, his shoes clicking across the level concrete surface as he assumed a brisk pace. Her subsequent footsteps verified that she was following him, but he dared not turn around and look. They swiftly crossed the rooftop and descended numerous flights of stairs until they emerged at the bottom of the apartment complex. Rorschach turned left once they had reached the sidewalk and led Narcysia down the street.

Unbeknownst to Rorschach at the time, that exchange would become one that he would replay and relive a hundred times over during the coming days, weeks, and months. In his most private moments he would dissect it, slice it apart, analyze the pieces, and try to make them fit together into a shape that didn't strike fear into his core. He would study every inflection of her voice, scrutinize that inquisitive look in her eyes, contemplate every possible implication of her query, and still it would never fit together – there would always be a piece missing. It would become a perpetual fracture in his past that would haunt him relentlessly, plague his solitude and draw him into a dark, empty fog.

And eventually, when all possibilities were exhausted and he still was lost, he would descend into a rare moment of contemplative retrospection. And he would wish that he had answered with something different.

Their walk was wordless. Rorschach led Narcysia down the sidewalk without once looking back at her or slowing his pace. As they traversed another two blocks and passed a particularly large group of excited trick-or-treaters, Rorschach's heartbeat slowed to its normal rate and his blood cooled. He focused his thoughts on navigating towards Nite Owl's house, where he planned to go in the hidden back entrance and see whether or not the ship was still docked in the basement. The house was a solid fifteen-minute walk from the apartment building they had agreed to convene at, but he was eager to embrace any excuse to keep moving.

The two of them soon slipped off the main streets and began weaving through back alleys. The deeper they went, the more the air began to stink of urine and garbage. The lofty walls on either side of them were covered with yellow, peeling paint, and broken shards of glass littered the pavement beneath their boots. The sound of the youthful Halloween mirth was soon too distant to be audible.

Instead, the sound of rambunctious laughter echoed in the alleyways. It was harsh, cruel laughter that pierced the cold night air – deep laughter that sounded nothing like the laughter of a good joke, but rather like the condescending laughter that came at someone's expense. The source of the commotion was soon apparent as Rorschach and Narcysia followed a nearby chain-linked fence and passed into the next alley junction.

The chain fence led them to an intersection that conjoined a narrow road and a forked alley beyond. In the center of the crossroad, an old open-roofed convertible car was parked under a streetlamp. The car's blue paint was peeling and the seats were stained with unclassifiable splotches. Seven large teenage boys were perched on the backrests of the seats and even crammed onto the doorframes, all of them laughing at an obnoxiously loud volume. Most were drinking from open beer bottles.

Rorschach glanced at the group for a split-second before he started tracing the border of the fence again. Narcysia followed him closely, but a cocky, irksome voice called out from the group of teenagers.

"Hey, look what we got here! Couple of sorry shitheads who think a grubby old costume's good enough to save the goddamn world!"

Rorschach turned and looked. The largest boy, who was sitting on the backrest of the driver's seat, had been the one to make the call. His hair was dark and unkempt, and his muscular build was thick and bulky. The nearly-empty beer bottle in his hand glinted in the streetlight overhead.

"Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, you fatherless bastard!"

"Hey, y'think they're here for trick-or-treatin'? 'Cause I'm sure we could give 'em a little somethin', eh?" a second boy said, illustrating his taunt by enacting a series of vulgar gestures with his hands. Laughter erupted from the car.

Rorschach and Narcysia simultaneously stopped and locked their eyes on the group, calculating and frozen mid-stride, like a pair of foxes sizing up a predatory cat. They made no sounds or movements in response; they merely watched and listened. The boys continued to laugh, a sharp chorus that resonated in the narrow street.

One smaller blonde-haired boy elbowed the first softly in the ribs and whispered as the laughter died down. "Seth… are you sure that's a good idea? I've heard about what that guy can do to–"

"Shut up, Billy," the brawny boy said, giving the blonde a hard punch in the arm. "I know who this clown is. This is the same faceless mother-fucker who put my papa in jail." He hopped down from his perch on the front door and calmly rounded the car, depositing his empty beer bottle on the hood as he walked past it. As soon as his shoes touched the pavement, the rest of the boys jumped out of the convertible and arranged themselves on either side of him, their faces still plastered with smirks.

"Dirty old mask to cover up his ugly face – yeah, that's the same one," the same teenager went on as the seven boys spread themselves along the length of the car. When he took a step forward, an echo of footsteps ensued as they aligned themselves into in a vaguely organized fan, circling slowly as they strolled closer and closer to the still-motionless pair who stood cautiously in front of the chain-linked fence.

Narcysia leaned towards Rorschach slightly. "Just a bunch of dumb kids," she whispered.

Rorschach's response came out as a low snarl. "Kids grow up."

The boys snickered as their formation continued to shift, slowly cornering Rorschach and Narcysia against the fence. "Looks like he even brought one of his little self-righteous playmates along with him."

"I hear all those costumed women pitch to each other, if you catch my drift."

Their smirking faces twisted into sinister grins under the flickering streetlight, and their eyes scoured Narcysia's figure up and down. "Know what that means, Terrance? We're halfway to getting a show."

Rorschach's face mask shifted calmly in the dying streetlight overhead. His left hand clenched and then relaxed. "Don't give me a reason."

The first boy laughed again, loud and obnoxious. "Was that a threat, you son of a bitch? We got you and your lady outnumbered," he said, gesturing towards his the encompassing array of allies at his sides. "And I don't think I like your tone. What do you think, Terrance?"

The second boy promptly responded, like a dog performing tricks at a command. "Sounds like he's askin' for trouble, that's what I think."

"Yeah, I think so, too. Think he was asking for trouble the day he decided to start playing dress-up along with the rest of those costumed queers."

Narcysia noticed Rorschach tense. It was just a slight change in posture, so subtle that only someone who was well-familiar with his mannerisms and stance would be able to notice. The aggressive teenager continued, either unconcerned or unobservant of the perilous shift in Rorschach's pose.

"Your kind ain't very well-liked around here, '_hero_.' In fact, I think we'd be doing this city a favor by knocking you off your high-horse. I know _my_ papa would thank us for it. Ain't that right, boys?" the brawny boy said, turning towards his group. A few of them hooted and hollered in response, nodding to each other with ominous grins on their faces. Only the smaller blonde boy in back seemed hesitant.

Rorschach released a low, contemplative hum under his breath. "If you trust your gang that much," he said, his voice harsh. He took one step in front of Narcysia, effectively displacing her and forcing her to step backwards into the fence. "Come and get me."

"Oh, feelin' lucky, old man? You're in over your head," the boy continued as he took another step forward. The rest of the boys followed like ducklings.

"I think he'd look good dangling from a fuckin' streetlamp, don't you think so, Seth?"

Another laugh ensued, louder this time, and the boys exchanged nods of approval. "Gonna rip up that mask to shreds and choke you with it. Everyone'll see your ugly face," the dark-haired boy's contemptuous voice called, and he spat to the side. "And that ain't even nearly as bad as what we're gonna do to your girlfriend," he continued, smirking at Narcysia.

"I don't know, Seth. If she's used to little men like this dipshit, maybe she'll enjoy it," the second replied.

Another wave of laughter echoed throughout, and Narcysia balled her fists. She could feel the many sets of eyes on her, watching, staring, almost hungrily. The boys were still jeering and still circling; the space between them was progressively shrinking. "Plenty to go around."

"Yeah, and we'll all want a turn."

Narcysia clenched her jaw. "That's some big talk for little boys."

"Slow down, sweetheart," the first boy grinned. "Gonna have to wait 'til we're done with him. Maybe we'll make him watch, eh?"

Something snapped in the air, some kind of invisible thread that had been stretched beyond endurance. In a sudden but silent surge of movement, Rorschach had closed the short distance between himself and the burly teenage boy, grasped his shirt collar, and dragged him in a sharp circle around his own axis. After completing half a rotation, Rorschach threw him headfirst into the chain-linked fence behind him, causing a piercing rattle as his skull collided with the taut chain mesh.

The boy collapsed in a heap at the base of the fence and lay motionless for a moment while the rattling of the fence echoed and tittered off into nothingness. When he finally looked up, he clawed at the fence for support, dragged himself up and turned around, wiping a drop of blood from his lip. Everyone was standing still. His boys stood motionless, watching him with uncertainty on their faces, while Rorschach and Narcysia stood on either side of him a good five feet away. Just watching.

The boy glared at his friends. "What the fuck are you standin' around for?" He spat a mouthful of blood onto the pavement and snarled through bleeding lips. "Get him!"

The command hung stagnant in the air for a long moment before the group of boys suddenly sprang into action. Instinct and habit took over; Rorschach and Narcysia assumed defensive positions, an inevitability that their coiled muscles had been subconsciously expecting from the start. The release of energy was almost a relief.

Six boys proceeded in a mad rush, all of them advancing on Rorschach, completely ignoring Narcysia until one of the boys received a nearly-crippling blow to the back of the head followed by a knee into his kidney. After an abrupt expulsion of expletives, the six boys split themselves in half. Three shifted their attention to Narcysia and the remaining three still occupied themselves by attempting to subdue Rorschach.

The leader, whose lips were still bleeding profusely, balled his hands into fists and followed the crowd that surrounded Rorschach, who had already engaged in a harsh series of physical contacts with the first three thugs. Their movements were sluggish and imprecise, powered more by inaccurate muscle power alone than skillful practice. As if that wasn't enough to condemn them, Rorschach could recognize the slumping effects of alcohol in their movements.

The alley had erupted in chaos: yells and screams of both pain and craze, fists colliding with faces, teeth scattering onto the pavement and blood dripping from split lips. And of course, the occasional crack of broken bones. Within thirty seconds of the outburst of violence, Rorschach had sent one boy flying across the alley to collide with the brick wall on the other side. The limp body slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap at the base, unmoving.

The three boys who had advanced on Narcysia had isolated her from Rorschach, and as the scuffle continued, they drove her farther and farther backwards until she was cornered against the opposite brick wall. But Narcysia's successes soon proved to parallel Rorschach's. The boys may have been stronger, but they were utterly green, inexperienced with combat and pain. She utilized feigns and false footwork to take advantage of their alcohol-dulled perceptions. Her success resulted in the collapse of one boy whom she had managed to throw headfirst into the wall, and the effective subdual of the remaining two by subjecting them to broken arms.

The fight lasted only about a minute. Rorschach felt no inclination to offer them any sort of leniency because of their young ages. The combat was rough and violent, but neither Narcysia nor Rorschach sustained any significant injuries. The only effect of the fight was heavy breath and the unwrapping of Rorschach's white scarf in the fray so that it hung loosely over his shoulders.

By the time the boys could take no more, the still-standing teenagers had recoiled and congregated in the center of the road, holding their wounds as though they were trying to hold in their own oozing entrails. "Seth, you're fuckin' crazy, man," one of them said as he cradled a broken arm. "I'm sure as hell ain't gettin' killed 'cause your old man didn't know when to quit dealin'! I'm outta here!"

Frantic footsteps paraded down the opposite alleyway as the injured boys sprinted away from the scene, leaving two unconscious friends and the battered ringleader behind. Rorschach watched the boys leave and then his head slowly turned towards the last remaining standing figure. The boy's face was bruised and stained with blood and his posture was crumpled, but his expression was still one of vehement, unrelenting hate. Rorschach put his hands in his pockets and began to stroll calmly towards him, making his final advance.

"Fuck you, Terrance!" the boy yelled down the alley as his friends fled, holding one hand over his broken ribcage. "And fuck you, you crazy son of a bitch!" he spat at Rorschach as the masked figure steadily got closer. "Gonna see you burning in hell some day, and then I'll be laughing!"

"Sorry to say," Rorschach muttered as he made one swift step towards him, closed the gap, and grabbed the boy by his collar, "but you're in for disappointment." Another metallic jangle rattled from the fence as the boy was shoved into the chain mesh.

The boy snarled and groaned as Rorschach pressed hard against his broken collarbone and ribcage. The bruise-swelled eyes closed tightly in pain, but Rorschach held him there for a long time, steadily increasing the pressure on his broken bones. Rorschach could feel the bones bending, breaking, and fracturing. Finally, the boy's eyes snapped open. "Show me your ugly face," he said hoarsely, and before Rorschach had time to react, the boy had reached towards his face, past his loosened scarf, and hooked two fingers underneath the fabric of his mask.

As soon as Rorschach felt two fingers successfully intrude the cloth by his neck, and multitude of split-second things happened. First, Rorschach instantaneously clenched his grip on the boy's collar and shoved him down from the fence into the concrete, causing the boy's head to collide with the solid ground with a stomach-twisting thump.

But Rorschach hadn't been fast enough. As the boy descended the fence, his hooked fingers didn't release Rorschach's mask. His hand shot upwards, scraping Rorschach's face with his fingernails, and crinkling the mask up over his face until it came free entirely of Rorschach's head and sent his fedora toppling. Then, just as the broken boy collided with the concrete, he hurled the mask as far as his confined circumstances would allow. The mask had flown over Rorschach's shoulder, fluttering like an empty pillowcase through the air.

A plethora of thoughts assaulted Rorschach's mind as he felt the cool night air come in contact with his undisguised face. _Can't let her see face – can't let anyone see – knock her out? – whatever it takes – make her forget–_

His fingers released the boy's collar and he whirled around, his eyes darting towards where his mask had fallen. The white, deflated shape had landed at Narcysia's feet, just behind her heel. She was still facing the brick wall away from him, leaning over an unconscious teenager who lay in a collapsed heap against the wall.

Time utterly froze. Rorschach stood paralyzed, entirely unable to move. In just a moment, she would turn around. She would see his face. She would know who he is; she would know his disguise. _No_. She would ruin everything. _No, no, no_.

He could do nothing but watch as a pair of long, gloved fingers picked up the mask. Narcysia grasped it between her thumb and index finger and rose slowly from her crouch, leaving the collapsed teenaged figure alone against the wall. She raised the mask in front of her, examining it in the diffusing light from the streetlamp. He could only see the back of her head, which was held at a downward incline as she scrutinized his captive mask. And still, he could not move; could not speak.

Then she turned.

But her eyes never left the mask. She turned and her eyes remained downcast, as if Rorschach was emitting a blinding light that she couldn't bear to look at. She walked towards him slowly, head bowed. Footsteps. Her boots were padding across concrete, approaching him.

She stopped in front of him, still not looking up, and he stared at her, his face flushed and heart beating so quickly that he thought it might shatter. And then she held out the mask to him, like a hallowed offering.

He felt his hands irrevocably snatch his mask from her, but he didn't put it back on his head right away. Instead, he clutched it in front of him, almost seeming to forget about it. His attention was still fixed on Narcysia; he stared at the top of her head as she kept her head bowed. Never did she look up at him. Never did she see his face.

After a moment, he heard her voice as she spoke to the ground. A childlike, innocent chime in the darkness.

"Can I look yet?"

Rorschach's memory of the rest of the night was distorted and hazy. He remembered putting his mask back over his face, and Narcysia finally raising her head. Then she had picked up his fedora from the ground and handed it to him. Smiled. Same stupid smile. That much was always clear and vibrant.

The rest was a string indistinct, muddled images of dragging three unconscious teenage bodies to the police station, finally meeting up with Nite Owl, and partaking in a long, quiet patrol. Just like any other night, except that his mind had felt scrambled with stunned relief that took a disturbingly long time to wear off.

Rorschach never told Daniel about what had happened between Katie and himself that night, either on the rooftop or the alley. Rorschach didn't tell Daniel about a lot of things. Maybe that was why now, in 1985, Daniel was irritatingly condescending when it came to topics about Katie _–_ he didn't understand what the two of them had put each other through, not fully. Rorschach had told himself that his own reluctance to talk about it was because it was utterly unimportant, but deep down he would admit to himself that it was because of something else. Fear, uncertainty, dread. Unavoidable feelings and complications that he didn't want to deal with, but could not escape. Not as long as she was at his side.

Now, in October of 1985, as Rorschach strode down a local business street lined with barred shop windows filled with Halloween costumes, he berated himself for ever feeling even a hint at anything more than strict camaraderie towards Katie. The fact that he had ever wasted energy on confusion, that he had ever allowed fear and uncertainty to slip through the cracks of his armor, that he had ever desired to decipher her enigma and rationalize it, was pathetic.

Because now, he knew exactly who she was, and he could see that she was an ugly, deceptive, hideous thing. His memories betrayed him, but he knew the truth. There were no disguises anymore.


	6. Broken

Author's Note: I received a Private Message from someone a couple weeks ago reminding me about this story – you know who you are. It's been over a year since I've written.

I owe this person a huge thanks because s/he gave me the little kick of inspiration that I needed to sit down and start writing again.

And I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, although I'm not entirely happy with some of the dialogue... but at least I'm writing _something_. Damn.

As always, feedback appreciated! (I actually realized there's a handy-dandy reply button on reviews now! FanFiction member for years and I never knew... *slaps self and feels incredibly stupid*)

* * *

**Chapter 6 – Broken**

Rorschach could remember very clearly the night that her body broke.

It was late, cold, and dark. 1974, January 25th. The team of three costumed heroes had been hawking the streets on the edge of the New York industrial district, and they had paused in front of an abandoned movie theatre.

"Hey, I remember this movie," Narcysia said, pointing to a faded poster outside the ticket booths. The poster screamed low-budget science fiction; it sported a man and woman dressed in bedraggled wedding clothes stained with blood, fleeing from some dark looming shape in the distance and a saucer-UFO shining a beam of light down from overhead. The couple was holding hands with exasperated expressions on their faces. "I thought it came out two years ago. This theatre must be really old."

"I don't recognize any of these movies. None of them look main-stream," Nite Owl said, looking up and down the wall of posters. Some of them had torn or fallen down. "Guess that's why the place went out of business."

"I saw this one when it came out," Narcysia said, pointing at an adjacent bloody-handprint covered horror poster. Her breath came like fog in the cold air as she spoke. She looked back at Nite Owl with a conversational smile to see him eyeing the poster with a distant, uninterested expression. "Not a horror fan, huh?"

"No, not really," he answered. "Not that kind of movie."

"What kind of movies do you like?"

Nite Owl looked back towards the first poster with the ominous UFO. He grimaced at the wedding-clad couple. "Some science-fiction ones are alright."

Narcysia looked past Nite Owl to see Rorschach lurking by a large, waterless fountain in front of the ticket booths. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking down at the rusted pennies and dirty chewing gum on the bottom of the fountain.

"I bet Rorschach likes horror movies," Narcysia said. The figure by the fountain looked up at the sound of his name, but he still faced the street. "You ever see this one, Rorschach?" she asked, gesturing to the poster.

"No," Rorschach answered without turning around.

"Well, what kind of movies do you like?"

No answer came. He took a few slow steps around the circular fountain and pulled his hand out of his pocket to pick up a penny from the fountain's ledge.

"You do watch movies, don't you?"

He slipped the penny into his pocket. He looked up at her from across the fountain. "Not really."

Narcysia let out a sharp, quiet gasp and half-grinned that lopsided smile. "You don't watch movies? Why not?"

"Not interested."

"What _do_ you do for fun?"

Rorschach sent an unimpressed glare at Nite Owl. The mask hid any facial expression but it was a look that Nite Owl was too familiar with. Nite Owl's mouth twitched into an apologetic frown and he shrugged his shoulders lightly.

"We should probably move on," Nite Owl urged submissively after receiving Rorschach's glare. He took a few steps towards Narcysia in a gentle push for her to walk away from the posters. She didn't budge.

"No, wait," she said, but Rorschach was already off towards the sidewalk at Nite Owl's invitation, and Narcysia was forced to trot after him to keep up. "Come on, I wanna know. You must do something for fun."

"Keep out of my business."

"Do you go to restaurants?"

No answer. Rorschach kept walking.

"Listen to music? Read books?"

Still no answer.

"Go drinking?"

Suddenly, Rorschach planted his feet and whirled around, stopping abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk to face her. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, back arched, perched on the balls of his feet – and his mask a glowering, shadowed gaze that expressed his impatience as well as any real face could.

Narcysia halted and flinched reflexively, almost bumping into him.

Rorschach remained frozen in place, fists still at his sides, glaring at Narcysia with his jaw clenched. It wasn't the first night he had felt such an intense loathing for _she_, who was nothing but a superfluous chatterbox, and Nite Owl, who caused it all, who brought her to him, who allows for these violations of his solidarity to occur. He felt anger. He was angry because they were selfish and they just didn't understand.

He opened his mouth to speak before he knew what he was going to say – and even eleven years later, in 1985, Rorschach still didn't know what words would have come out of his mouth if he were not interrupted by a sudden shriek from a neighboring alleyway.

All three costumed heroes stiffened and looked up as the scream echoed overhead. Like firemen responding to an alarm, they immediately dropped the exchange and took off sprinting towards the sound of the scream, sloshing through puddles and piles of grime-covered snow on the sidewalk.

When they arrived on the scene, they found a man draped in a heavy brown trench coat and a woman cowering in a pile of wet garbage. Her pants were torn, her coat had been flung to the opposite side of the alley, and her purse lay wide open on the ground with makeup scattered across the ground. She was holding her arms over her head, shaking against the cold brick wall.

The man bolted as soon as the Watchmen rounded the corner. They pursued him down the alley with a chorus of sprinting footfalls, leaving the battered woman cowering in the cold. Rorschach in the lead, they followed the thief a surprising distance, navigating through garbage cans and piles of junk, industrial equipment and old tires. The man was unusually quick on his feet, and he managed to evade them long enough to flee to a roadside construction site, where an unfinished office building sat half-erected in a nest of scattered scrap and metal beams.

The fleeing thief ran inside the skeleton building, and his feet made hollow clanging sounds as he climbed the wooden ramp up two floors.

"Back me," Rorschach said to Narcysia, voice hoarse from the sprint. "Hold the top of the ramp. I'm going up."

None of them realized the man had a gun. None of them realized until it was too late.

It was 1974, January 25th, 11:45 p.m. Rorschach could remember it very clearly. The crack of the gunshot followed by a high-pitched scream had turned his blood to ice for the duration of a heartbeat.

He had turned around just in time to see a small shower of blood fall from Narcysia's body as she stood on the edge of the wood-plank ramp behind him. She teetered precariously for an agonizingly long moment, and then lost her balance and fell limply off the plank. She fell two stories and landed with a heart-wrenching crack onto the unpolished construction floorboards below. A storm of dust exploded around her when she landed, one board cracked, and she didn't move. He watched her for a long moment, and she didn't move.

"Shit!" Nite Owl's voice sounded from the base of the ramp. Meanwhile, above him, the thief pocketed his smoking gun and took off towards the stairs on the other side of the building. He fled into the shadowed construction site, free and unharmed.

Nite Owl quickly leaped from the base of the ramp and kneeled down next to Narcysia's body. She was unconscious. One of her legs was bent at an unnatural angle and he could see blood oozing from the small bullet hole just below her shoulder, on her left collar bone.

"Get her to a hospital," Rorschach's voice called down from the top of the two-story ramp. He took several steps along the edge of the floor, looking down at his teammates as he tucked one hand into his coat pocket.

Nite Owl looked up. "What? Where are _you_ going?"

Rorschach turned and disappeared from view into the second floor. His voice sounded from above. "Have some unfinished business to take care of."

"Damnit," Nite Owl swore under his breath. "God damnit!" He gritted his teeth and scooped Narcysia up from the ground carefully, with pointless attention to being gentle, and carried her back towards the road. A thick smear of blood remained on the wooden floorboard where she had fallen, like a pulpy juice smear where an overripe fruit falls from a tree.

Archie was docked somewhere in the sky overhead. Nite Owl summoned the ship remotely and prayed for the best.

* * *

Rorschach strode briskly along the floor of the construction site, tracking the man by the fresh footprints he had left in patches of snow. He made his way quickly through the scattered wooden support beams and metal scrap, like a cat stalking its prey. The thief was close. He couldn't have gotten far.

A long, green metal box that sat on one of the support beams next to him caught his attention as he walked past it. He stopped and opened the box, which creaked as he nudged it open. Inside, he discovered an array of construction tools, from screwdrivers to hammers and nails. He picked through the tools until he found a pair of slightly rusted wire clippers. Pocketing the wire clippers, Rorschach took off into a jog again.

The man had a gun. He wanted to play with toys. Rorschach could play with toys, too.

The tracks stopped at the doorway of the next building over, an abandoned warehouse. The man was crouched in the shadows, chewing his lip anxiously and trying to soften his breathing as he fumbled with his pistol.

A soft creak near the door made the man immediately point his gun into the shadows. "Who's there?" the man demanded, voice weak and shaking. "Back off. Back off! I'll shoot. For Christ's sake, I'll shoot your damn head off!"

Rorschach had already slipped through the door, concealed by empty warehouse shelves. He snuck up behind the man quietly, and like a snake slashing out from a shadowy perch, suddenly the gun was sent across the floor, clattering over uneven floorboards. Rorschach tackled him and held him against a shelf, holding his throat.

"Oh, God," the man bubbled weakly.

Rorschach punched him once across the jaw, earning a whimper.

Pinning the man against the shelf with his elbow, Rorschach reached for the man's right hand and stretched out his sweaty fingers. Then he curled the man's outstretched fingers forward in such a manner that the tendons on the back of his hand protruded from his skin, pulled taut like guitar strings strung from his knuckles. Then Rorschach reached for the wire clippers.

The man's breathing suddenly became even more ragged. "Jesus, man, you can't do that," he breathed. "Please, I'll – I'll turn myself in! God, just stop, please! Please!"

"Itchy trigger finger," Rorschach growled as he aligned the wire-clippers with the man's index tendon. "Shouldn't be an issue once I'm finished with you."

_Snap_. Blood spurted from the wound and the man screamed, writhing in pain. Rorschach shoved his elbow harder into the man's shoulder, forcing him to fold into the shelf. He readjusted his grip on the man's hand and held his middle finger into a curl.

_Snap_. The next tendon broke, falling unstrung from the bones like a broken guitar string.

The screaming man's yells finally slowed, and his head wobbled. Rorschach looked at him and noticed that he'd shut his eyes tightly. "Keep your eyes open," he snarled as he brought the clippers to the man's ring-finger knuckle. _Snap_. The third tendon quivered in the clipper's metal teeth and a third stream of blood trickled down the man's hand.

When Rorschach finished with the man's right hand, the man's screams had been reduced to a whimper, and he was unable to even hold himself up against the shelf. At some point, Rorschach stopped pinning him and let the man collapse in a heap.

"Hurm," Rorschach huffed contemplatively as he dropped the man's ragged right hand. The man couldn't seem to move it; he just stared at his grotesquely mutilated hand in horror. Rorschach tilted his head. "Could be ambidextrous. Don't want to take any chances."

The man gargled incoherently as Rorschach stepped over him and reached for his left hand. He curled the fingers again, causing the tendons to rise like taut strings under his flesh. The blood-drenched clippers came to the index tendon. _Snap._

At some point during the second procedure, the man passed out from the pain. Rorschach continued his work until his left hand looked just like his right: a torn mass of flesh with unstrung tendons hanging loosely from the tattered flesh and bones. He wouldn't be operating any firearms anytime soon.

When he was finished, Rorschach dragged the man into the street and deposited the unconscious body in front of a nearby post office. He placed the wire clippers snugly in the man's right hand.

Rorschach felt good. He felt really good. The man's blood on his gloves was turning dark. His hands smelled like coppertart blood drying on metal, and the night didn't feel so cold anymore.

He felt good until he realized that Nite Owl's ship was nowhere to be found. He watched the sky but there was nothing there except sickly orange clouds. Newspapers fluttered in the breezy streets and the pavement was sticky with city snow; streetlights flickered weakly overhead and suddenly everything around him looked unfamiliar.

It was dark. There was nothing. He was all alone.


End file.
